Annotated Playthrough: Rise of the Dorkling

The Dorkling is what happens when stick a Halfling, a Trisword, an Alchemist's Scroll, and a lot of gold into a bag and shake vigorously. For 80 conversion points, a Dorkling gets a Health Potion, +2 base attack, and +8 max health. The name comes from the fact that this character effectively has the racial traits of a dwarf, an orc, and a halfling, all at once.

Making a Dorkling requires a perfect storm of a prepped Trisword or Alchemist Scroll, the early discovery of the other item, and a substantial amount of starting gold. It is very rare to see this in natural play. If you have your heart set on doing this, you're going to have to scum. What follows is a just for laughs playthrough of a scummed Dorkling run.

For a dedicated Dorkling run, I recommend a Thief. Besides the obvious synergy between Halfling potions and the Survivor trait, the Thief also provides extra gold to keep the combo going and extra shops so that you have to scum less to get the combo in the first place.

The best place to run a Dorkling is probably the Demonic Library. The five mini-bosses provide you with lots of gold right at the point where your starting cash begins to run out. It's also a VICIOUS dungeon, which I find desirable when using such an over the top strategy. It's no fun using a howitzer to hunt rabbits.

In this run I eschewed all gods. I wanted this to be about Dorkling abuse, not divine hijinks.

Locker: Trisword or Alchemist Scroll (essential)
Thief: Black Market (almost essential)
Church: None, but Extra Altar is always nice
Mage: Extra Attack (highly recommended)
Blacksmith: Shield (essential)
Bazaar: Elite or Quest (depends on which item you had in your locker)
Alchemist: Transmutation (essential) use this on the Shield to get your initial funding
Potions: Whatever, but Quicksilver and Strength are a good starting kit

Ah, finally! After spending over a thousand gold on restarts, I can get down to business. Don't worry, I got that gold by shamelessly hacking my game, so it's all good.

I got a little excited and forgot to take pictures for a while. Such is the intoxicating power of the Dorkling. I used Quicksilver + Strength to kill that Steel Golem-3, and then took out the Doom Armor-4 by using up a health potion. IMAWAL gave me a nice bit of bonus xp for both kills. Remember, you WANT to use a potion at least once per level, so don't hold back. Just try to avoid using too many potions on any one level. Your scroll only works once per ding.

With all of my Dorkling advantages, I want to always be fighting at least two levels higher than myself. After a bit of thought, I realize that I can hit the Djinn, drink a Health potion, hit him again, and then Cydstep.

I screwed up here. I after killing the Djinn, I picked off an Imp-6 and ended up leveling without drinking a potion. This small loss of health will end up being an irritating thorn for the rest of the game. Determined to not make the same mistake twice, plan on killing this Djinn using an attack/potion/attack/Cydstep combo.

It's time to start thinking about taking on the Demonlords. With IMAWAL active, I can double Fireball that Demonlord to the south, attack/potion/attack-kill the Thrall, Cydstep into the Demonlord, and be one xp short of a ding. I'm irritated because I've already used a potion this level and if I had those 8 health I missed out on from before, I could have held off on the second potion. It's not a huge deal, I still get the Trisword bonus, but it's annoying.

I can easily finish the Demonlord by dinging off of a popcorn monster. He poisons me with his parting shot, but that is of little consequence to a Halfling. The gold he drops guarantees smooth sailing from here on out. From here on, I want to dedicate my resources to killing Demonlords whenever possible.

I choose to go after this guy next. Retaliate: Fireball isn't a dangerous trait against a Dorkling, but it is probably the most irritating trait when coupled with death protections. I should kill him now before he becomes a problem. I can take him down by attacking/Cystepping and then cleaning up popcorn. I have 12 mana that I can't spend on the Demonlord. I debate whether to spend those on a Succubus-8 or another Demonlord. I end up choosing to Fireball the Demonlord on the right, the one with Manaburn and Deathgaze.

Like this.

It was a mistake. I can't quite finish the second Demonlord. I should have invested those fireballs into the Succubus instead.

So I explore a bit and then take him out. I'm strong enough now that I don't need mid-level tricks to win these fights, so long as I get to start at full resources.

Case in point. Notice that I have so much gold now that I've even bought a pair of elven boots.

I finally find the last Demonlord. This is the worst one for my character, but I'm not afraid. I've been saving that BLUDTOPOWA glyph in anticipation of meeting this guy. With my huge health pool and dual-natured potions can roast this guy. I could do it without BLUDTOPOWA, but this is just cooler. I have to convert the Alchemist Scroll to make room, but it's worth it. The fun thing about Thieves is that they can change their play style at the drop of a hat.

After cleaning up the surface a bit, I head down to face the Avatar. I didn't document the fight, but after remembering that the Avatar has 75% magic resistance, I converted BLUDTOPOWA, spend all of my gold on conversion junk, and went back down with a stack of health potions. Not that I needed them. Just look at this girl.